


Always by your side

by superhobbitwholocked



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Guardian Angel!Cas, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superhobbitwholocked/pseuds/superhobbitwholocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you know that feeling, like you are being watched, even though you are alone in the room? Or do you sometimes hear the floor creak, or do you dismiss a fleeting touch on your shoulder or a fluttering sound as imagination, or as a trick of the wind? Have you ever wondered how it can be possible that a person can come out of a terrible accident, without having a scratch on their body? That and much more are evidence of our existence. Things do not happen by pure chance. Some people have ceased to believe in us, and have instead begun to take many things for granted, without questioning them. But no matter whether you believe in us or not, no matter where your path may lead you, we are always by your side. Because we have one task, only one: namely, to watch over God's creation. But without ever being seen or recognized by our charges. One can argue about whether our life is a curse or a blessing, but one thing is undeniable for me: life is very lonely as a guardian angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my, this is my very first FF for a English fanfiction site. So please be nice :)  
> Find me on Tumblr: http://superhobbitwholocked.tumblr.com  
> I also have a German version of this: http://www.fanfiktion.de/s/5218c2850002530116570dc5/1/Always-by-your-side
> 
> Lots of thanks to my beta reader IvyDevoss!! Without her help this story would be full with errors as English isn't my native language!!

_Do you know that feeling, like you are being watched, even though you are alone in the room? Or do you sometimes hear the floor creak, or do you dismiss a fleeting touch on your shoulder or a fluttering sound as imagination, or as a trick of the wind? Have you ever wondered how it can be possible that a person can come out of a terrible accident, without having a scratch on their body? That and much more are evidence of our existence. Things do not happen by pure chance. Some people have ceased to believe in us, and have instead begun to take many things for granted, without questioning them. But no matter whether you believe in us or not, no matter where your path may lead you, we are always by your side. Because we have one task, only one: namely, to watch over God's creation. But without ever being seen or recognized by our charges. One can argue about whether our life is a curse or a blessing, but one thing is undeniable for me: life is very lonely as a guardian angel._

### Prologue:

The heat that surrounded him was overwhelming. But the smell, this burning smoky stuffy smell, was unbearable. The 4-year-old boy frantically pulled the blanket tighter around his little brother, who was lying in his arms and crying. "Don’t worry, Sammy! I'll get us out of here." He tried to calm him, but he couldn’t hide the panic and the desperate tone of his voice.

Terrified, he looked around the hallway to find a way out of here. The front door was blocked by a burning wooden beam, and everywhere there was fire and dense smoke that made it more difficult to breathe. There was a loud rumble, and Dean jumped to the side when suddenly a piece of the ceiling fell down and blocked their way back into the living room. Now their way was blocked from all sides.

He coughed hard, tears flowing down his cheeks. Where were his parents? Daddy had said that he wanted to look for his Mommy, but until now he hadn’t seen them. The little boy was so scared.

"Ssh, Sammy. Everything will be all right." He began to rock his brother in his arms. Only a moment and Daddy would find them and bring them out. "Carry on my wayward son." The boy began to sing to calm himself and his brother, which didn’t quite work. "There'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don’t you cry no more." It was the song that his Mommy always sang to him when he woke up from a nightmare, but the loud crackling of the flames around him drowned out his quiet, smoke-roughened voice. 

What are you supposed to do in a fire? He tried to remember what the fireman who had come to their kindergarten had told them, but he couldn’t concentrate. He was so tired. And he was dizzy.

Somehow he had to find a way out of here and save his brother, but his head began to spin. His knees weakened and he sank exhausted to the floor. No matter where he looked, everything was in flames. "I'm sorry, Sammy," the boy said, sobbing as he pulled Sam tighter to his chest to give him a little protection from the hot flames.

"Dean," he heard a deep voice call out. At the sound of his name Dean looked up, but he couldn’t see anyone. The smoke was too dense and the sulfur smell brought tears to his eyes - breathing was getting more difficult.

"Dad!" he shouted as he squinted his eyes. His view was foggy with tears, but he could see the silhouette of a man standing in front of him. He quickly wiped the tears away from his eyes, but this man was not his dad.

"Are you a firefighter?" he asked the man hopefully, but upon closer inspection, he realized that this man didn’t look like someone from the fire brigade. Firefighters wore cool uniforms and a helmet, and carried a hose to extinguish the fire. The man in front of him was wearing a tie that wasn’t straight and a long brown coat, which reminded Dean of the coat the man had worn who had helped his parents with boring adult stuff. 

Damn, he was so tired. Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a moment...

"Dean, you shouldn’t to fall asleep!" the strange man said sternly.

"Who are you?"

The man tilted his head. "I'm your guardian angel."

Dean closed his eyes before opening them again quickly. His mommy had always told him before going to bed that angels were watching over him. If he weren’t so scared, he would have showered the angel with questions. Where he came from. Whether there were other angels. The boy tried to stand up but his little legs gave way under his weight. If this man really was an angel, he could at least save Sammy.

"Please, can you get Sammy out of here?" he asked the angel.

But the stranger shook his head, his blue eyes sympathetic. "I'm sorry, but I can’t." Dean felt tears spring to his eyes. 

"You must be strong, Dean. You have to get yourself and your brother to safety. "

"I can’t...too tired ..." Dean's eyelids were getting heavier.

"You can and you will. Stand up! You have to get out of here now!" the angel urged.  
Dean gathered all his strength and stood up, swaying while he wrapped his arms protectively around the little bundle against his chest.

"This way. Hurry up! "The man pointed to the wall behind Dean, where there was a hole that was big enough for Dean to climb through. As fast as his tired legs could carry him, he ran to the kitchen. Before he opened the back door, he turned around again, but the angel was gone. Maybe he was looking for his parents, Dean thought. The boy quickly ran into the garden, but only a few feet away from the house someone grabbed him from behind and he and Sammy were lifted up.

"I’ve got you boys." His dad calmed him. "Don’t worry. Everything will be fine now."

A few seconds later there was a big explosion on the top floor of the house. The windows broke and shards of glass were scattered everywhere on the ground. John Winchester ran as fast as he could to the other side of the street, where a few frightened neighbors had already gathered, having come out to see what was happening. One of them shouted frantically into his cell phone that the fire department should hurry.

After he had looked around, Dean turned to his father and pulled on his sleeve to shift his attention from the burning house to him. "Dad, where's Mommy?" he asked.

But John didn’t answer him. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the burning house with sad eyes.

Five minutes later, the firemen arrived, but they couldn’t do much. The house was almost burnt down to the ground already. They were only able to bring out the body of Mary Winchester.

That evening, John and his two sons were in the hospital. After his examination, Dean went to his father, who was looking out the window, lost in thought. "Dad?"  
"Hmm?"

"Did you see the angel?" Dean asked. His father had to have seen him, for the angel had certainly tried to save his parents. It was the task of an angel to protect the people, right?

"What?"

"The angel. He was wearing a brown coat and a funny tie and... "

"You only imagined that, Dean. There was no one. "

"But Mommy always said that angels -"

With a glare, John turned to his son. "Listen, boy, things like angels do not exist. If they did, then your mother would not ... "John was starting to shout, but he stopped when he saw the tears in the eyes of his son. He stood up and hugged Dean firmly. "I'm sorry, Dean. I didn’t mean to yell, but you're a big boy now. And big boys don’t believe in fantasy characters, you understand?"

Dean nodded and buried his face in his father’s neck, while they wept together.

That night, Dean knelt beside his hospital bed, his hands folded on the blanket and his eyes closed, just the way he had always prayed with Mommy. "Dear angel ..." he whispered. "If you're there, can you show yourself to me, please?"

After a few seconds, he opened one eye and looked around the room cautiously. But he was alone.

Tears began to rise again in his eyes and he wiped them furiously away with his sleeve. "Why didn’t you save my Mommy?" he asked, and got angry when there was only silence.

Furious at himself, he shook his head. "Dad was right. There are no angels. Otherwise Mommy would still be here. I don’t believe in angels anymore!" he shouted as he climbed onto the bed. His mother had been wrong all along. There were no angels who watched over people. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself to protect himself from the cold, and cried himself to sleep.

Over the next 22 years, Dean did not pray once, for he had long ago lost his belief that there were creatures that protect humankind. His life was so crappy that it was proof enough, and he dismissed the man in the coat and the tie he thought he’d seen that night as a figment of his imagination, caused by smoke inhalation.

But through all the years he was not aware that he was, in fact, watched over by an angel. An angel in a tie and a trench coat, with sad blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you say?  
> The song Dean sings is, of course, "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas. I found a lullaby version to this song which I love listening to.  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kf8a3vcjUc
> 
> Ask me anything on my Tumblr! :D  
> http://superhobbitwholocked.tumblr.com/


	2. Dean's story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter!! Yeay :)
> 
> Many thanks to IvyDevoss!! I would be lost without my beta reader :D

Warnings: much violence, rape, homophobia  
________________________________  
Dean’s story:  
  
After his mother's death, Dean's life was no longer the same as before. No more funny family trips on the weekends, no more watching his parents while they were looking at old photos, no more hearing a bedtime story before going to bed or being sung back to sleep after a nightmare. 

All their personal belongings had been destroyed in the fire, including the family photos.

After they had Mary buried, John went with his sons in the family car, which he had bought for Mary's sake, to his old friend Bobby Singer, who had an auto repair shop in Lawrence and had offered them the opportunity to live with him until they found their own place to stay.

***

When Dean saw the old man standing at the front door from the back seat, the boy unbuckled his belt, jumped out of the car and ran joyfully to Bobby.

"Uncle Bobby!" he cried, and laughed as he was being lifted by Bobby, who had been kneeling on the floor to catch the boy, before hugging him firmly. Strictly speaking, Bobby was not his real uncle, but he was a good friend of his parents, so he practically was part of the family anyway. Although the mechanic could sometimes be a bit grim, he had a big heart and was taken with Dean.

"Dean! Have you grown!" the man laughed then turned to Dean’s father. "John."

"Hello, Bobby," Bobby hugged him too, clapping him on the back.

"My sincerest condolences, John," he said sympathetically. He knew exactly how John felt, because his own wife Karen had been killed several years ago in a robbery.

John nodded. "Thank you again. For letting us stay here with you."

"Oh nonsense," Bobby stopped him with a wave of his hand. "Whaddaya got a family for?"

The hilarious laughter from the child in the back seat drew everyone’s attention to the baby happily sucking on his finger.

"And that must be little Sam," Bobby said and ran his index finger gently over Sam's chubby cheeks. Sam, who had lost his interest in his fingers, grabbed Bobby's finger and promptly put it in his mouth to bite toothlessly on it. 

Somewhat perplexed, Bobby pulled his finger out again before he turned back to the others.

"Well then, come in."

***

At first Bobby didn’t worry too much, when John started drinking. He had mourned for his wife like that too, and he assumed that it would get better with time, since John had to take care of his two sons.

But the three beers he usually drank in the evening quickly became fifteen throughout the course of the day, and after weeks of John doing nothing except getting drunk and watching TV all day, Bobby had had enough. Grief or not.

When Bobby came home from a few errands, he was welcomed with loud crying coming from the room that served as a nursery. Frustrated, Bobby sighed and put the shopping bags in the kitchen before he marched angrily into the living room. As might be expected, John was still sitting on the couch watching TV and was taking a sip from a bottle of beer.

"John, damn it! I told you that you gotta take care of your children while I 'm gone. Don’t you hear Sam screaming his head off? "

But John continued drinking, undeterred. "I'm busy."

"Yeah, I can see that!" Bobby said sarcastically. Finally John turned his attention to the older man. "Is there something you want to tell me, Bobby?”

"Oh, how about this: I’ve been taking care of your kids for weeks now! John, I can’t watch ‘em all day! I got things to do!"

"I don’t remember you complaining before." Now Bobby had had enough.

"Because I thought you needed time to get over Mary's death!" At the mention of Mary’s name, John winced. "I understand that you miss her, but this has to stop!" Bobby said, pointing to the empty bottles on the table. "You have to take care of your boys. Mary wouldn’t want you to let yourself go like that. "

Sighing, Bobby ran a hand over his face. 

"Look, how about if you look after the boys and I call around and see if I can find work and an apartment for you?"

"What, you’re throwing us out now?" John asked angrily.

"No, idjit. But living at a garage isn’t the best thing for small children. Dean almost broke his arm yesterday while he was playing at the old scrap heap, John!"

John finally seemed to become aware of his behavior and stood up from the couch. "You're right, Bobby. I'm sorry." Bobby patted him on the shoulder before going into the kitchen again. Swaying and still woozy from the alcohol, John walked up the stairs, propping himself on the railing.

He came to the door of Sam's room, which was open a crack. But he couldn’t hear Sam crying - instead Dean’s voice came from the door gap. John opened the door and found Dean standing next to Sam's crib, showing his brother a photo which Sam was slapping happily with one hand.

"Mom was so pretty, Sammy," Dean said with a sad smile. It was the only photo that had survived the fire. It was wrinkled and covered with soot around the edges, but otherwise perfectly fine. It showed the family on their last fishing trip. His father was kneeling in the foreground, holding a large fish in his hands, while Dean’s mother was sitting next to her husband, holding Sam in his arms and with Dean sitting on her right leg, holding the fishing rod. They had all been grinning cheerfully into the camera.

With large, rapid steps, John crossed the room and gave the bewildered Dean a slap. "How dare you?" John shouted angrily, his hands clenched into fists. Sam, who felt that something was wrong, began to cry. "How dare you speak of her? It's your fault! It's your fault she's dead!"

Dean's eyes filled with tears as he touched his cheek, on which a red handprint was beginning to bloom.

"What is going on here?" a voice called from the door, and Bobby stepped in. His gaze slid from Dean’s cheek to John’s hands, which were still clenched into fists. "John, what's gotten into you?" he cried, tugging John away from Dean.

"It's his fault that Mary’s dead," John shouted. Furious, he grabbed the photo and tore it into pieces, then stormed out of the room and stumbled down the stairs. Dean winced as his father slammed the front door with all his force.

Still shocked, Bobby turned to Dean, seeing tears rolling down the boy’s cheeks, and took the little boy into his arms.

"Oh, Dean." Bobby held the boy tightly against him. "Don’t listen to what your father said. He’s still very sad because your mom ain’t here anymore. He didn’t mean it."

But he felt Dean shook his head at his shoulder. "No. Daddy’s right,” he sniffed.

Confused, Bobby leaned back to see the little one's face. "What...?"

"It's my fault that Mommy’s dead!" Dean didn’t look him in his eyes as he continued. "I wanted to have a hot chocolate, but Mommy said that it was already too late for hot chocolate, but I really wanted one, and then she went into the kitchen to make me some. If I had been good and had just gone to bed, then the microwave would not have exploded and there would have been no fire, and Mommy would still be..."

"Dean, stop it!" Bobby interrupted him harshly. "Look at me, my boy." Bobby lifted Dean's chin so he was looking at him. Dean reluctantly lifted his gaze.

"Listen to me carefully now, boy. It was an accident. You're not to blame. Don’t let anybody convince you otherwise, understood?" He waited until the boy nodded.

"You're a good boy, Dean. Your father..." Bobby paused and shook his head. "Your father wasn’t in his right mind when he said that. It isn’t easy for him either. Of course this doesn’t mean that it was okay of him to say that. But it'll be all right, you'll see, hmm?"

Nodding, Dean wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand.

"So," Bobby said as he stood up. "Now you gotta help me with the diaper changes. Judging by the smell, Sammy’s released a stink bomb."

He ruffled the hair of the giggling boy, and hoped that he would be right and everything really would change for the better.

***

After John had apologized to Dean hours later and had promised that such a thing would never happen again, things really seemed to be getting better again. John drank less and spent more time with his children, but he was watched like a hawk by Bobby, who hadn’t forgiven John so quickly. He could tolerate a lot. But parents who beat their children, for whatever reason, were not on the list.

With Bobby’s help, John found a job at the garage in the next town. They said goodbye to Bobby, who made them promise to call him now and then and tell him how they were doing. Together, they stowed their bags in the trunk and drove off.

***

When John beat Dean the next time, he had been drinking again, after he had lost his job. He apologized immediately afterwards and blamed it on the alcohol. The next day, they drove to the next town, but there he quickly released got fired too.

The more often John lost his job, the more often he beat Dean. Dean’s teachers didn’t notice, because they traveled frequently and therefore the same excuses could be used more often, while Dean always made sure that Sam didn’t notice anything.

Many years went by in this same pattern: first, they would come to a new city, check into a motel, his dad would start at his new job, Sam and Dean would go to a new school; a few weeks later, John would lose his job for some reason and he would come home drunk and began to beat Dean in his frustration. Dean would get in trouble in school for once again falling asleep in class (not that Dean cared, because he knew that they would move again soon anyway), John would load their belongings in the car and drive them to a new city, check into a motel, etc.

Dean was practically the one who raised Sam. He helped him with his homework (which became easier the older Sam got - the boy was a genius), made him memorize emergency numbers in case something should happen, and Dean had even been the one who gave him ‘the talk’!  
Dean also made sure that Sam was always in his room and didn’t come out until his dad had finished taking out his frustration on Dean or had slept off his intoxication. For nothing in this world would he let anything happen to Sam. As promised, Dean called Bobby a few times a week what city there were in, what they were doing, and proudly told him how smart his brother was in school. The only thing he didn’t report was that his father was still hitting him.

At 14, Dean was about ready to pack his bags and run away. But every time he felt he couldn’t endure the hatred and the pain any longer, every time he stuffed the few things that he could call his own into a backpack and was standing with one leg out of the window of the motel and his eyes trailed over his peacefully snoring little brother, he realized that he couldn’t just disappear. What would happen if his father woke up the next day and noticed that Dean was not here anymore? Would he start to beat Sam? But Dean couldn’t take Sam with him. No, he couldn’t let his brother down. So like every time, he climbed back into the room, put his backpack next to the bed and laid himself, without undressing, on the bed. Then he rolled around in bed for hours without finding sleep, which caused Sam to wake up. "Dean?" came a sleepy voice from the other bed.

“Everything’s all right, Sammy. Go back to sleep," Dean said, angrily wiping the tears from his face.

"What's the matter?" Sam asked anxiously as he sat up and rubbed his hands over his eyes.

"Nothing, Sammy. I just can’t sleep."

For a few minutes there was no sound except the ticking of the clock in the motel room, and then Dean heard a rustling sound from the other bed and the soft pitter-patter of the bare feet of his brother, who was now standing next to Dean’s bed. "Dean?"

"What is it?" Dean asked, although he already knew the answer.  
Eyes on the ground, Sam shifted from one foot to the other. "Can I sleep with you?"

Instead of answering, the older one folded back his blanket, and Sam immediately climbed onto the bed and snuggled up to his brother's side.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Dean asked. Sam nodded and Dean wrapped an arm around his brother.

"The yellow-eyed monster again?" Since a few older students from the previous school had told Sam a creepy story of a yellow-eyed monster that lived under motel beds and ate small children, Sam had been having these nightmares. Dean wished he could go back and beat the crap out of those idiots for scaring his little brother so much.

"You don’t have to be scared, Sammy," Dean whispered as he gently stroked his hair. "I'll take care of you. I'll always take care of you," he promised.

***

Unlike Sam, who was really good in school and got great grades, quickly making new friends with his friendly, open attitude, Dean mostly kept to himself and didn’t care for school. Why should he make the effort and adapt? In a few weeks, a few months at the latest, they would move away anyway. Why should he make friends he wouldn’t be able to stay in touch with?

That all changed when he met Alastair one day.

Dean was 17 when he and Sam started at McKingley in Phoenix, Arizona for the spring semester. Alastair was the cool student at the school, two years older than Dean, and was respected by everyone - at least that’s what Dean thought at first; later he would find out that it hadn’t been respect, but fear.

A week after Sam and Dean had started at the school, Dean was leaning casually against his locker one day when Alastair appeared next to him. "Hey," he greeted him.

Uninterested, Dean gave him a brief glance. "Hey."

They stood together in silence for a few minutes. As a pudgy boy walked past them, Alastair stretched out a leg, causing the boy to stumble and drop his books on the floor, which made Alastair start to giggle. Dean resisted the urge to help the boy, who scrambled to his feet and quickly disappeared around the next corner. Still smiling, Alastair turned to Dean. "Follow me, Dean."

Not asking how he knew his name, Dean went with him out behind the school yard. He didn’t care that the bell had rung signaling the start of class. Two other boys were standing there; one of them had blond hair, the other darker.

"Crowley. Lucifer. This is Dean. "The blond boy, Lucifer, briefly nodded to him, while the other one, Crowley, smiled.

"Welcome to our humble little circle," the boy said in greeting.

"I bet we’re going to have lots of fun together." Alastair winked at Dean.

***

In the coming weeks, Alastair and Dean became good friends, but Alastair wasn’t exactly a good influence on Dean. The younger man started to drink, commit petty theft, and to spend time in bars, for which he had to get a fake ID.

For Dean, however, it didn’t matter, because he finally had someone he could call a friend. For years he had convinced himself that he didn’t need any friends, but he had to admit it was a good feeling to be able to talk to somebody about things he didn’t want Sam to be worry about. If one of them was detained by police after a robbery, they didn’t backstab each other, they covered each other’s back. Before knowing Alastair, words like friendship and loyalty had been foreign to Dean.

Crowley was okay, Dean guessed. Although he liked to play pranks and had the strange habit, of stealing other students’ stuff from the lockers, saying they could ‘trade’ a kiss to get them back, he was otherwise quite harmless.

From the beginning, though, Dean loathed Lucifer. He couldn’t say exactly what it was, but Dean did his best to avoid him. 

One day after-school, Dean was walking down the empty hallway, when he passed Lucifer, who was harassing a smaller boy by pulling on his long hair and saying: "With your hair, you look just like a girl." Dean would normally have kept walking, but when he met the boy's desperate gaze and realized whom Lucifer was teasing, he immediately went to them to pull the bigger one away. 

"Dean," Sam cried, relieved to see his brother.

"Dean, what are you doing?" Lucifer asked, exasperated, but he gasped as Dean clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it into his face. Dean was pleased to hear the cracking of bones and see the blood shooting out of Lucifer's nose.

"Damn, what are you doing?!" the bleeding boy repeated, holding his nose.

"If you mess with my family, then you mess with me too. And believe me, you don’t want to mess with me. Remember this, you son of a bitch."

With an angry expression, Lucifer disappeared.

Immediately, Dean turned to his brother. "Are you all right, Sammy?"

Sam sighed, annoyed. "You shouldn’t call me that at school, Dean! Other people might hear you!"

Dean laughed. "'Oh thank you, Dean, for saving ma ass," he imitated his brother’s higher pitch. 

"Yeah, Dean. You are a knight in a shining armor who saves the damsel in distress from the evil villain."

"Did you just compare yourself to a fair maiden?"

"Oh, shut up!"

"Bitch!"

"Jerk!"

Laughing, he lovingly ruffled Sam’s hair. "Come on, princess," he said happily, bent down to pick up Sam's backpack and slung it onto his shoulder.

"I hate you. Can we go home now?" Sam complained.

At the word ‘home’, Dean felt a twinge in his chest. He wanted to go there too. 

Home.

***

A few weeks later, after Sam had confessed to his brother that he had gotten his black eye because of Lucifer and had been teased by him for a while, not saying anything to Dean because he wanted to sort it out alone and didn’t want to run to his big brother all the time when he was having problems, Dean went with Sam to the principal, who promptly flunked Lucifer out of school, because he had already received enough warnings and suspensions, and the principal had finally had enough.

After this conversation, as Lucifer was taking his things out of his locker, he turned for the last time to Dean. "Just you wait, Winchester. We’ll meet again!"

***

Dean was lying on his bed and watching a Star Trek marathon.

After a violent quarrel, his father had grounded him before storming out of the motel. Normally, Dean wouldn’t give a damn about it and would still go to Alastair's birthday party, which was today, but since Sam had a slightly elevated temperature, he had decided to spend the evening at the motel, taking care of his brother.

He was checking Sam’s temperature again, which had already decreased slightly, when there came a knock at the door. He opened it and, as he had expected, Alastair was standing in the doorway. "Where are you? You’re missing all the fun!"

Dean sighed. "I can’t come. I have to take care of Sam. He’s sick."

Alastair gave a bored look past Dean's shoulder to the bed where the younger Winchester was lying. "Come on, Dean! He’s sleeping."

"Yeah, but..."

"Don’t be a spoilsport! Only for an hour or two, nobody will know."

Only reluctantly, Dean agreed. "Okay. Wait a minute."

He grabbed his leather jacket and approached Sam's bed. "Hey, Sammy?"

"Hmm?"

"I’m going out for a bit. Do you need anything?"

"Tired."

"Get some rest, okay? I'll be right back."

"Okay, Dean."

Dean turned off the television, shut the door behind him and followed the taller boy.

Because Alastair’s parents were out of town over the weekend, the boy had the big house to himself.  
When Dean and Alastair arrived, most of the guests were already very drunk. Everywhere there were couples making out, people dancing, drinking and roaring along to the music.

"I'll be back," Alastair yelled into Dean’s ear over the noise of the music. Dean nodded, turned and winked at a girl, who began to giggle and turned back to her friends.

A few minutes later, Alastair appeared in the crowd and pushed a glass into Dean’s hand. "Here, drink! It’ll help you relax" The bigger boy winked at him.

Dean downed the drink in one swallow. 

After a few minutes, Dean began to waver. He was dizzy and felt weird. Tiredly, he tried to keep steady on his feet, but was rapidly becoming more difficult and he almost tripped over the carpet. Two strong arms caught him and wrapped around Dean's body to keep him upright.

"Hey, hey. Watch out. We don’t want you to hurt yourself," Alastair whispered into his ear.

Dean ran a hand over his face. "I don’t feel so good, Al ... "

"Hmm," Alastair said thoughtfully as he stroked a few strands of hair out of Dean’s face. "You really don’t look so well. Maybe you should lie down for a bit. Come with me."

He wrapped an arm around Dean's shoulder and helped him up the stairs to his room. Groaning, Dean collapsed on the big bed. What had been in that drink? He dimly noticed that Alastair was locking the door and then approaching Dean slowly, like a predator stalking towards his poor injured prey.

"So," Alastair said, sitting down next to Dean on the bed and beginning to stroke Dean's leg with his long fingers. He leant forward and whispered in Dean’s ear "Do you have a gift for me?" Dean tried to back away, but his body wasn’t responding. Had Alastair put drugs into his drink? But why would he do such a thing? Powerless, Dean fell back again onto the bed.

"What...?" Dean muttered, but he could not think clearly.

"No need to worry," Alastair reassured him, but from the way he looked leeringly at him, Dean’s stomach churned. "I know what I want from you." Then the bigger one pressed his mouth firmly to Dean’s. Dean’s eyes widened in shock and he gasped. Alastair used the moment to stick his tongue deep into Dean's mouth, causing the smaller boy to choke.

With a strong and almost painful grip he held Dean's face, so he couldn’t turn away. Dean tried to push the other boy off of him, but his attempts to push Alastair away ended with him only hitting his chest weakly. With his last strength Dean kicked out his leg and made contact with Alastair’s crotch.

Panting, Alastair doubled up, his grip on Dean becoming more loose. Dean quickly took the opportunity to roll out from under him. He had to get out of here. He had to call for help. But who would hear him?

Dean felt panic rising in him, as two hands grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him roughly back onto the middle of the bed.

"No," Dean cried. "Let me go!"

But Alastair laughed mischievously, turning the weaker boy onto his belly and pinning him to the bed with his body weight. "You're stubborn," he whispered into his ear, and Dean shuddered with disgust, as Alastair ran his tongue over his ear.

"I like that." As if in confirmation, he rubbed his groin on Dean's ass, and the younger boy whimpered fearfully, as he felt his arousal.

He didn’t understand. Alastair was his best friend. He had always been able trust him. Why was he doing this? He had to get back to Sam. He should never have left him.  
"I knew that we’re going to have lots of fun together" Alastair laughed and started to lick and suck at Dean's neck. His hands went under Dean's shirt and gently caressed his stomach before Alastair let his hands slide further below Dean’s boxers.

Horrified, Dean tried to turn his head away, to swat the hands, to fight back somehow, but because of the drugs clouding his mind and the panic of what was happening right now, his body was unable to move.

Behind him, he heard a zipper being pulled down. The hand in Dean's pants rode up and began to open his belt. When that was done, Alastair moved Dean's pants and boxer shorts down to his knees with one jerk. Then he reached over to the drawer and pulled out a condom.

Up to that moment, Dean had been paralyzed by fear , but when Alastair pressed his hard cock to Dean's ass, he pulled away and tried to wiggle himself out of Alastair's iron grip with all his strength.

"No! Please, let me go!" Dean pleaded, tears flowing down his cheeks.

Quickly Alastair took hold of Dean's wrists with his hand and pinned them over his head. In this position he was completely at Alastair’s mercy.

"Oh honey. The real fun is just beginning," Alastair laughed before thrusting, hard and without warning into Dean.

Time seemed to pass very slowly, but when Alastair finally came after a few long agonizing minutes, Dean was both relieved and horrified.

With a satisfied grunt, Alastair pulled out of Dean, before giving Dean a pat on the butt and letting himself fall on the bed, exhausted.

Dean crawled away from him as fast as possible, but in his haste he became entangled in the sheets and fell to the floor. 

With his jeans and boxers in one hand, Dean ran to the door and tried to open it until he remembered that it was locked. He sank to the ground and pulled his legs up to his chest.

"The key is in the top drawer in the dresser to the left of you," Alastair said, bored and amused at the same time.

Dean stood up hesitantly. Unsteady on his feet and with his whole body trembling, Dean began to dress as quickly as the pain in his ass allowed him to, and dug through the drawer until he found the key. He quickly turned to the door, but in his rush he had trouble inserting the key into the keyhole.

He almost cried in relief when he finally managed to open the door, but before he could press the door-handle down, Alastair said in a sing-song voice "Oh, and Dean?"

Dean stopped, frozen in shock, though he wanted nothing more than to disappear immediately. What did Alastair want from him now?

Alastair lounged with relish in his bed, still pantsless. "Don’t bother going to the police. My parents are highly esteemed lawyers. You have no evidence and your family has just enough money to afford a shabby motel room. I doubt that you have enough money to pay a reasonably good lawyer. It’s quite clear who would win in a trial, isn’t it, Dean?"

Dean stormed out of the room while Alastair called after him: "Have a good evening, Dean!"

Dean rushed frantically down the stairs, ran into a few drunken people, and finally got out into the garden, where he vomited violently.

He did not know how, but he somehow managed to limp to the motel. A few meters away from it, he was grabbed by the shoulder from behind and pushed up against the motel’s wall.

"Where the fuck have you been?" his father yelled at him.

"I - "

"You should be looking after Sammy! Are you actually useful for anything? What if he'd run out of the room and been injured?"

Tears burned in Dean's eyes. And what about him? The fact that he could be injured - had been injured? Did anyone even care?

" Dad, I - "

Only now did John look at Dean's neck, where marks clearly loomed on his otherwise pale skin , and for a brief hopeful moment, Dean thought he saw concern in his father's eyes, a sign that he cared for Dean, but his gaze quickly turned cold again. "You left Sam alone to go let someone fuck you? I didn’t bring you up as a faggot! I have no friggin’ gay son!"

Then John started to beat his son mercilessly, and, once he was lying on the ground, to kick him. Dean didn’t care. He wished John would kill him. His life wasn’t worth living anyway. In this moment death would actually be very welcome.

Only in a daze did he notice the door to their room being opened and his brother came running out.

I'm sorry, Sammy, Dean thought.

Then everything went black.

When Dean opened his eyes and was blinded by the glare, he actually thought he must be in heaven, or wherever you really went when life was over.

He looked around the room, where everything was white and sterile, but when he glanced to his right and saw the monitors and the equipment hitched up to him, he realized that he was lying in a hospital bed.

A doctor examined him and asked him many questions. Of course the doctors noticed that Dean had been raped, but Dean remained silent and refused to answer any questions about that. Shame and hopelessness were too big.

The doctor informed him that his brother, after he had been awakened by the cries outside the motel, had run out to push John away from Dean, and, after his father was gone, had called 911 from the phone in the motel room. Dean's father, after he had climbed drunk into his car and collided with a truck, had died.

The doctor told him that they had called Bobby, who was registered as their emergency contact, so he was coming here and would be told what had happened. That was what Dean dreaded most. To see Bobby look at him with the same disgusted expression that his father had had.

But a few minutes later, when Bobby walked into the room and Dean saw the tears in his eyes as his gaze slid over Dean's face, he was startled.

Never in his life had Dean seen Bobby cry. "Why didn’t you tell me, boy? We’re family. I would have helped you!" Dean could no longer hold back his tears.

When Dean was released a few weeks later, Bobby took him and Sam in - no ifs, ands, or buts - to live with him.

***

Despite Bobby's urge to try to make his graduation, Dean dropped out of school and began working as a mechanic at Bobby’s, while Sam began several years later to study law, in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a lawyer.

The nine years during which Dean worked with Bobby and lived in a small apartment near the workshop were pleasant and quiet. He didn’t earn much money, but it was enough to live on. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.

"Dean?" he heard Bobby call one day. Dean emerged from under the car he had been working on, dabbed his forehead with a towel and wiped his oil-stained hands on his jeans. "Yeah?" he said.

"Can you drive into town and pick up a few spares from Rufus? I have to do a lot of paperwork here."

"No problem," Dean was quick to answer, because that meant he could take a long ride in his Chevy again. The car had been brought to them after a serious car accident, and although Bobby had said that the car irreparable, Dean had managed after a few months to fix the car in his spare time. Because the owner had long ago bought a new car and had no use for the repaired car, he left it to Dean.

He loved to sit in his baby, as he affectionately called his car, and to drive for hours with no particular destination in mind. 

But Dean would never have guessed that when he sat down behind the wheel of his car that day, his life would change completely.


	3. The accident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of thanks to my amazing beta-reader IvyDevoss!! Go, read her fanfics and give her some love!!

The accident:

After Dean had got the things Bobby needed from Rufus, he put them in his Impala and went on his way back. 

On the return journey, he turned AC/DC on, singing loudly and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time. He did everything possible to not think about the conversation he had had with Lisa, whom he had met in Kansas City by chance. She had accused him again of not calling her for days. She had said that she had tried to get through to him, but after a month into their relationship, Dean still hadn’t opened up and she had grown tired of it. She’d broken up with him. He couldn’t blame her. 

He knew that he wasn’t the most sociable person, or someone other people wanted around. Since Alastair, he found it difficult to trust others or build up relationships. In fact, he was surprised that Lisa had endured it so long with Dean. His usual relationships didn’t last longer than a week until they broke up with him.  
He tried, but he couldn’t trust others easily. He had been wrong before, and he had sworn to himself that that wouldn’t happen again. 

Dean loved to drive in his car. He didn’t know why, but every time he didn’t feel good, he only needed to be behind the wheel of his car, turning up the volume of his old cassette tapes, driving fast, and his mind would clear again. 

The heavy raindrops pattered on the windshield when he suddenly fell silent at the opening to the chorus. He felt as if he had heard something. Confused, he turned his head to the passenger seat - as expected, no one was sitting there. But he could have sworn that there had been a sound, like a chuckle, and ...  
"Damn!" Dean shouted, as he turned his gaze back to the road and frantically pulled the steering wheel to one side. In the middle of the road there was a car and Dean was about to crash into it. 

He managed to steer his car around the other vehicle. He caught a brief glimpse of the blonde woman at the wheel, but because the road was wet, the car skidded off the edge of the road. The Impala balanced unsteadily on the edge, but it was slowly skipping forward, directly over a steep slope.  
Quickly, Dean tried to unbuckle his belt and to climb into the back seat, or to somehow get out of there. 

While he frantically pulled on the strap, finally able to undo it, Dean heard the squeal as the metal from the bottom of the car scraped on the stone slab, and he got the same tingling feeling in his stomach as when you’re at the top of a roller coaster and everything just seems to stand still for an instant until the wagon tips forward. By that point he knew it was too late. 

For a brief moment, the car remained in this position until there was a loud bump and Dean and the car fell forward over the edge. Faster and faster the vehicle rolled down the slope until it turned over completely. 

Bang. 

Dean was thrown forward in his seat. The car landed on its roof, but it didn’t stand still. The car rolled on and on. 

Bang. 

The car landed again, but this time Dean felt like he was being pressed back into his seat by something, rather than having his body jolted forward. He couldn’t feel anything, although from the force of the impact, he surely should have... 

Bang. 

The metal around him was being dented, the roof had been completely pushed in, and the door to Dean's left had been torn away. Through the shattered window on the passenger side Dean saw a tree coming towards him. Dangerously fast. 

In a desperate attempt, Dean raised his arms in front of his face, but of course he couldn’t do anything against the impact. 

*** 

When Dean regained consciousness minutes later (or had it been hours?), he felt like he had the worst hangover ever. His head was ringing, he was dizzy and his limbs were aching like hell. Everything seemed to be upside down and his ears were ringing from the blood rushing into his head.  
He groaned and tried to sit up, but something was holding him in his seat. Suddenly, he remembered: the car on the road, the accident... 

Blindly, Dean felt for the clasp of his belt, but there was nothing. Dean realized that he was not buckled. His fingers brushed something gentle, soft, which was lying over his body. 

"What the ...?" Dean felt like he would faint again but he wanted to know what this was between his fingers. Slowly, he opened his eyes. His vision was blurry. However, he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw what it was: his body was wrapped in a ridiculously long wing with incredibly deep black feathers!  
Dean turned his head to the side to see what animal these wings were attached to. Before he lost consciousness again, he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a tan coat. 

 

Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep.  
The monotonous beeping was disturbing Dean’s sleep. Grumbling, he groped with his hand to find the cause of the noise, to turn it off, or, preferably, to throw it on the ground so that the annoying beeping would finally stop. 

"Doctor, I think the patient is waking up." He heard a woman's voice, but it was distant, as if his head was being held under water. 

"Thank you, Nurse," a male voice said, and then directed itself at Dean. "Hello. Can you hear me? "  
Dean opened his eyes and nodded. 

"Do you know your name?" 

"Dean. Dean Winchester," he said and looked around. He was lying in a hospital bed. Oh great. "What happened?" 

"My name is Doctor Carter. You are at Mercy West Hospital. You had an accident. But don’t worry. Except for a laceration and a few scratches, you’re doing fine. No broken bones or internal injuries. We’re still waiting for the result of the MRI, just to be sure. It’s a miracle." The doctor smiled as he turned to Dean. "Your guardian angel seems to like you very much." 

Dean rolled his eyes. 

 

A few minutes later his brother came storming into his room. 

"Dean!" 

"Sammy? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at Stanford?" 

"Are you kidding me? I took the weekend off so I could visit you. How are you?" Sam asked anxiously, and sat down in the chair beside the bed. 

"Just peachy," Dean said sarcastically. 

"You should be dead!" 

"Wow, thank you very much, Sam." 

"No, I meant...the doctors said that the car was so messed up that the firemen needed an hour to get you out. Hell, they even had to use a bolt cutter to cut you out of the wreck, because the chassis was so banged up, and yet here you are..." 

"Wait, what was that?" Dean asked and narrowed his eyes. He must have misheard that. "They used a bolt cutter on my baby?" 

"Yes Dean, but -" 

"How is she?" 

"The car is scrap metal. No chance of repairing it." 

Dean sighed. Why was this all happening to him? 

*** 

The next time Dean opened his eyes, a man was standing at the foot of his bed and turned his blue eyes to him. When he met the gaze of the other guy, the man's eyes widened. 

"Hey, Doc," Dean said with a yawn as he stretched, still lying in his bed. The man he had spoken to glanced over his shoulder, as if he wanted to make sure that he was the one who was meant, but when he saw that he was the only one in the room, he turned back to Dean. "...You can see me?" 

Dean frowned at the strange question and he felt as if he had heard the voice before. "Of course. When can I get out of here?" He hoped soon. He didn’t like hospitals very much. 

"I don’t know. I'm not your doctor, Dean. " 

Yawning, Dean sat up in the bed and rubbed his hands over his eyes. "Who are you?" he asked the man.

"You know who I am." 

Dean stopped short in his movement to cast a searching look at the man. Yes, he looked familiar. Those amazing blue eyes, the long tan trench coat. Images suddenly appeared in his mind of a man who had introduced himself as an angel that night. But that couldn’t be possible. He had only imagined this man.  
"No, I don’t," Dean said defiantly. 

The man tilted his head. "Dean, I'm your guardian angel." 

For a few seconds, there was a deafening silence until Dean laughed.  
"Oh man, how many painkillers did they give me," he said, more to himself than anything else, as he ran his hands over his face tiredly. 

"I'm not an illusion, if you mean that." 

"Dude, of course you are. There are no guardian angels." 

"Are you so sure?" 

"Listen, if you're really my guardian angel, you aren’t a very good one." He gave the devices to which he was connected a pointed glare.  
The strange man narrowed his eyes. "Do you really think you would have survived the accident with nothing more than a few scratches, if it weren’t true? You should be more grateful!" 

"Grateful?" Dean asked angrily and tried to sit up. But then the door opened and his doctor stepped in. When Dean returned his gaze to the man he had been speaking to two seconds ago, he was gone.

"Hello, Dean. How are you?" Dr. Carter asked, his gaze directed at the clipboard in his hands. 

"I think I'm going crazy," Dean muttered. 

At the questioning glance of his doctor, he said: "I'm fine." 

Dr. Carter nodded. "Good. Your results are excellent. You can go now." 

Dean didn’t need to be told twice. He quickly grabbed his leather jacket from the chair and stormed out of the hospital. 

*** 

A few days later, Dean was working on the car of an elderly woman who had problems getting the car to start. After a few checks, Dean had found the problem: a leak in the engine. In his spare time he worked on his Impala. No matter what the others thought, and to hell with Bobby, who insisted that the car was scrap metal. Dean had managed to repair the car once, he could do it again. 

He was working on the underside of the car and whistling the tune to "Highway to Hell" when he caught sight of a pair of shoes standing beside the car. He waited for the customer to say something, but whoever it was remained silent. Dean wondered how long he had been standing there. He asked: "Can I help you?" 

First there was silence, and then: "Hello, Dean." 

At the sound of the voice of the man whom he had thought to be a customer, Dean tried to sit up, but because he was still under the car, he banged his head on the hard metal. "Damn it," he swore and slid out from under the car. He groaned and rubbed his forehead with one hand until he remembered that he wasn’t alone.  
He briefly closed his eyes before he opened them again and turned his head to the side. Perhaps he had only imagined him. But as soon as he met the gaze of the other man, who was staring at him with his head tilted to the side, he groaned again and dropped his head back. "This can’t be possible!" 

He opened his eyes to see if the other man was still there and discovered that the man’s face was very close to his. Dean tried to back away immediately, but now he promptly slammed the back of his head against the cooling fan. 

The angel (?) looked at him curiously, before he raised his hand. "Whoa, what are you doing?" Dean asked. But the other man wasn’t deterred and reached two fingers towards his forehead. Dean tried to shrink back. "Dean, don’t move!" the other man said, and something in his voice made Dean obey. Dean expected to feel the fingers on his forehead, but the stranger stopped a few inches away, and suddenly his headache was gone. 

Confused, Dean stared at the other, who, pleased with himself, leaned back again. "Do you believe me now?" he asked Dean. 

"What?" 

"Your pain is gone, right?" 

Dean snorted. "Of course it’s gone. It was nothing." 

The man looked unhappy, but said nothing. 

Dean shook his head in disbelief. "I have a brain tumor, right? It always starts like that. You see people that you aren’t supposed to see, and it turns out that you have a tumor. " 

Sighing, the other guy said: "You have no tumor, Dean. I am your guardian angel. " 

Dean angrily stood up from the ground and turned his back on him to take the cloth laying on the hood and wipe his hands on it. "Stop saying that over and over." 

"But it's true." 

"Just get out! Something like angels doesn’t exist. " 

"Dean, I -" 

"I said get out!" Dean snapped, and turned around furiously, but when he turned around, the other man was gone. 

"Boy, why are you screaming?" Bobby’s voice called from the door and the man looked around. 

"I think I'm losing my mind." Dean shook his head and closed the hood of the car.  
"Hey, Bobby?" 

"Hmm?" Bobby had sat down at his desk and was going through a few folders. 

For a moment, Dean hesitated to ask Bobby this, but well, what the heck. "Do you believe in angels?" 

The older man paused in turning the pages, and then looked up at Dean. "Angels? How did you get that idea?”

Dean snorted. "Dunno. Just forget it. " 

Both men worked in silence for several minutes, until Bobby said, "Yes." 

"Yes? Even after Karen..." 

"Boy, there's so much crap in this world ... I dunno. I think everyone needs something to believe in." Bobby said, and then he remembered something." Sam called me earlier. Did you leave your phone at home again?" 

It happened often that Dean forgot his cell phone in his apartment because he simply didn’t need it. Except for talking to Sam, whom he called once a week to make sure he was doing okay, and Benny, who worked part-time in the garage and whom he called when he needed a drinking buddy, he used his cell phone rarely.  
"I’m telling you, boy. One day you will miss an important call and regret it." 

Dean snorted. 

"You should take a vacation, boy," Bobby added. 

Dean groaned. Since he had been released from the hospital and had immediately appeared back at work, Bobby had been nagging the younger one to take some time off. "I'm fine, Bobby," Dean said for what felt like the thousandth time in the past three days. 

"Balls. You go home and take at least a week off. " 

When Dean opened his mouth to protest, Bobby said, “Don’t make me furlough you! In all the years you’ve been working here, you’ve never once taken a vacation. Enjoy your time off, or travel somewhere!” 

 

Reluctantly, Dean accepted the holiday. Since he had nothing to do, he wandered aimlessly around the city first, and then went to a bar to get drunk.  
When he arrived back at his apartment, he sank onto the couch and let his gaze wander through his room. It wasn’t a very homey set-up. There was only one photo hanging on the wall, which had been taken when Sammy and him had been very young, and clothes and boxes were strewn everywhere. It wasn’t exactly welcoming to any potential guests, but it had never bothered Dean. Why should it? He was much better alone. This way, he had his peace. No one could disturb him. He wasn’t lonely. 

But the silence in his apartment seemed to overwhelm him this evening, so he decided to call his brother. Unfortunately, only his answering machine answered.  
"Hello. Here’s Sam ... "came the voice of his brother. 

"... And Jess!" Dean heard a woman's voice in the background. 

Jessica was his brother’s girlfriend. Sam had met her in his first year at Stanford, and they had been inseparable since the very first moment. Dean had to smile slightly as he remembered how he had called his little brother and he had proclaimed excitedly that he would marry Jessica one day. Dean was happy for Sam and he was proud of him. 

"I'm not here at the moment ..." 

"... Or he's ... busy." Suddenly there was a giggle. 

"Jess! Can’t you be serious for once? "Sam wanted to know, annoyed, but Dean could clearly hear the loving tone in his voice. 

"Why?" 

After that there was just babble until the beep sounded. 

With a sigh, Dean hung up and went through his contact list. He didn’t have many contacts. Benny, Bobby, Ellen, the bartender at the Roadhouse, Lisa (now he could probably delete her number), Jess, and Sam. He leaned his head back and listened to the silence. 

No, he definitely wasn’t lonely. 

*** 

The next day, Dean woke with a headache, nausea and a stabbing pain in his neck. Damn, he just had to go and fall asleep on the couch! He sat up and stretched, but paused in his movement, as he suddenly sensed that he wasn’t alone. And indeed, as he glanced over his shoulder, he was face to face with the so-called angel. Instinctively, he shrank back, but this meant that he slipped off the couch and fell to the ground. 

Annoyed, he stood up, rubbing his butt. "Dude! Ever heard of personal space? " 

Ashamed, the blue-eyed man dropped his gaze to the floor and, fortunately, took a few steps back.  
Sighing, Dean sat back on the couch and laid his head on the arm again. He rubbed a hand over his face before raising his hands into the air, yielding. "Okay, come on!" 

"I don’t understand ..." 

"Well, heal me already! If you’re my guardian angel or whatever, then you ought to be able to do something about the headache. What else are you here for? "  
Dean opened his eyes, and saw the other approaching him, again raising his hand to Dean’s forehead. Immediately, the nausea and the headache were gone. Dean tried not to think too much about it. He sat up to see the other better. The angel moved his shoulder as if something on his back was itching, but he was trying to suppress the urge to scratch it. His eyes were sad and pained, and he looked at Dean uncertainly once he had taken a few steps back. 

Okay Dean. Don’t be an ass and thank him at least, he thought. 

"Thank you." Dean said curtly, and almost had to smirk as the eyes of the angel began to shine and he smiled at him. Almost. "Why don’t you guys spend all your time going around healing people like this?" 

Granted, it would be handy. If angels really existed. Dean still had problems believing that the man who stood in his apartment was really an angel.  
"Because we aren’t allowed to," was the reply. "It would attract your attention if you were healed within seconds." 

"Then why did you do it this time?" 

The angel hesitated for a moment and scratched at his neck, embarrassed, not quite meeting Dean’s gaze. "Because ... because I wanted to prove to you that I’m really an angel." 

But angels weren’t real, Dean tried to convince himself. They only existed in movies and books. And yet, there was a man in his apartment who not only claimed to be an angel but also seemed to have magical healing powers. 

"Okay, supposing there are guardian angels: why do people die?" 

"You have to understand, Dean. We are indeed powerful, but not omnipotent. We can engage in certain things, but we can’t do everything. If it’s time for a person to die, it’s not destined for us to interfere. Death is natural. The time of a person on God's Earth is limited." 

"Tss, stop talking to me about God. After everything that happened..." He trailed off as he thought for the first time in many years back to Alastair. "So many bad things happen in this world ... I don’t believe in God. Even you won’t be able to change that." 

"You misunderstand me, Dean. My job is not to convert you. My job is to watch over you," he said sternly. It confused Dean. In one moment, the angel seemed to be shy and insecure, and in the next he was authoritarian and strict. 

"And why didn’t you save my mom that night?" Dean snapped at him suddenly, causing the angel to take a few steps back, almost frightened. 

"A guardian angel is assigned to only one person, Dean. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have saved her, " he said. 

For a few minutes, Dean stared stubbornly at the television. Why was he speaking to him at all? In fact, he shouldn’t be here, couldn’t be here. Dean should yell at him that he should move his ass out of here, that he wasn’t welcome here and that he should go back, where he came from. Instead, he turned the TV on. He tried to ignore that a creature that wasn’t supposed to exist was standing behind him, but it was difficult, because he could feel the gaze of the other man on him.  
"Oh dude, sit down already. You're making me nervous just standing there and staring at me." 

Cautiously, the angel approached the couch, as if he expected that Dean would yell at him again when he came too close to him, and sat down at an appropriate distance next to Dean. Dean again noticed that the angel was moving and his face was contorted as if his movements were causing him pain. But the thought vanished as he noticed with a slight horror that the couch didn’t sink under his weight when the other man sat down.

After some channel surfing, he found a music station that played rock music. Satisfied, Dean noticed that the man beside him was drumming his fingers on his thigh to the beat. At least his angel had good taste in music. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean looked at the other man, "Hey, angel." As soon as those words left his mouth, he wanted to facepalm.  
With wide eyes, the angel turned to Dean. He obviously hadn’t expected that Dean would speak to him. "Yes, Dean?" 

If Dean could curse one of his qualities, then it was his extreme curiosity. Oh, fuck it.  
"What’s your name?" 

"You want to know my name?" the angel asked with a small smile. 

Dean suppressed his urge to roll his eyes. "Well, apparently you aren’t going to vanish anytime soon, and I’m certainly not going to call you ‘angel’ again."  
The other man frowned and tilted his head to the side, confused. "Why not? I am an angel." 

Against his will, Dean had to smile, but he banished the smile as quickly as possible from his face. Damn, he shouldn’t like him. Yet here he was sitting and chatting with him as if they had been friends for years. But he was somehow difficult to hate, with his naive, innocent attitude. "So…" he asked, but the other man continued to stare at him. "You have a name, right?" 

The angel nodded. "Castiel." 

"So, Castiel." When Dean said his name, the other man sat up straighter and smiled. "How much longer must I tolerate your presence?" he said. He didn’t mean it in a bad way, but how often do you have a creature that shouldn’t exist sitting on your couch? However, when the angel gazed back at him with a hurt look, as if he had seen him kicking a puppy, he wanted to take the words back. 

"If you wish, I will immediately disappear." 

Sometimes he cursed his big mouth. Why couldn’t he think before he spoke? Did he always have to drive the people who stepped into his life away with his mean behavior?

"No! What I meant was ... how long will I be able to see you? How long can you be on Earth before you have to go to Heaven or wherever? You've never been here as long as today." Dean tried to make the question sound as indifferent as possible. 

"I’m always by your side. I don’t go to heaven. " 

Dean's head boomed. It seemed that instead of answers, he got more questions. Wait a minute ... 

"What do you mean 'always'? You can’t possibly always be here, can you?" Suddenly Dean had a disturbing picture in his head of himself lying on his bed and jerking off while Castiel stood next to his bed and watched him with his head tilted to the side. He shuddered at the thought and blushed slightly. 

"You don’t need to be ashamed, Dean." Castiel's voice brought him back, as if he knew exactly what Dean had thought. "It is normal for humans to masturbate."  
But that didn’t help Dean at all. "Dude! No," he cried in horror. "We are not going to talk about that!" 

"Why not?" 

"Because you don’t talk about that with other peoples!" 

There was silence for some time, until Dean thought of something else. "Hey, can you read my mind?" 

"Yes," Castiel said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

"Then don’t do that. That’s creepy. " 

"I can’t always hear your thoughts. But I'll try to refrain from doing it if it calms you." 

It was too early for Dean to deal with all this.  
"I need a beer. Want some? "And there it was again: he hadn’t thought beforehand. "You know what, forget it." 

"It's only 10 o’clock in the morning," the angel said sternly, but that didn’t bother Dean. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle.  
"Hey, Castiel?" he asked as he opened the bottle of beer. "How come I can see you? I mean, why now? " 

But as he turned to the couch, the place where the angel had been sitting seconds before was empty.  
"Son of a bitch," he swore, and wondered if Castiel had told him the truth and was indeed at his side all the time. Would he be able to see him again? He would never admit it out loud, but he still had a lot of questions about this whole angel thing, and although it was hard to believe, the presence of the angel hadn’t been that terrible.

Damn, Dean really was lonely.


	4. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! :)
> 
> Is someone else excited for Sherlock tonight?^^
> 
> Here is the new chapter. Thanks again to Ivy for betareading!!

During the first days after Castiel's appearance in his apartment, Dean felt like he was being observed and repeatedly cast glances over his shoulder on his way to work, because he thought somebody was following him, but could see nobody.

Even as he worked on the cars in Bobby's garage, he felt as if he wasn’t alone, though not a single soul was there except for Bobby, who was sitting in his office. More than once, Dean caught himself emerging from under a car, covered in oil and his heart pounding, because he had heard quiet steps or tools falling to the ground. He let his gaze wander through the garage.

"Castiel," he whispered and waited. But he got no answer.

Annoyed at himself, he shook his head and swore to stop this silliness.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks to months. The green leaves of the trees turned yellowish-red, and they slowly began to fall to the ground in early November, but Castiel didn’t show up.

At least that was what Dean tried to tell himself, because there had been situations that made the mechanic doubt his own sanity.

The first time that he believed he’d seen the angel again happened two days after Dean had talked to Castiel in his living room.

The mechanic came home from a hard day's work and the only thing he wanted was a hot shower and then to lie down in his bed. Exhausted, he dropped his tool bag in the living room and went to the bathroom, where he promptly got undressed down to his boxers and turned the tap of the shower to ‘hot’.

While he was waiting for the water to reach the desired temperature, Dean turned to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His gaze slid from the freckles, which he had hated ever since a girl in school had told him that he looked ‘cute’, to the dark rings under his eyes and to his sand-colored hair that looked grayish because of the dust and the long hours of working on cars.

The young man rolled his shoulders to loosen his tensed muscles a bit. How he now longed for the hot streams of water massaging his back and helping him relax.

Sighing, he set about taking off his boxers, but stopped suddenly. Although he felt stupid, he couldn’t get Castiel’s words out of his head that the angel was ‘always by his side’, and he had been feeling paranoid for the past few days.

Not that he was ashamed of his body, damn it, not at all, but an unpleasant shiver ran down his spine at the thought that an angel, a MALE angel, could be watching him while he was showering.

"Um...Castiel?" As expected, he received no answer.

"Well, if you're there, then turn around. No offense, but I 'm not keen to be observed by a guy while I take a shower."

After a few seconds, Dean shrugged, but he took off his boxers fast and stepped into the shower, drawing the shower curtain quickly.

Satisfied but tired, Dean turned off the tap after a few minutes, got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. Yawning, he wiped a hand across the mirror, fogged up from the heat, and held up his towel with his other hand. But when Dean looked in the mirror, yet someone he knew was standing behind him, and he almost let the towel drop to the floor in shock.

Quickly, he gripped the towel tighter and ran his other hand through his still damp hair before he laid it on his chest, where his heart was beating wildly. 

"Cas! Damn, what the ... ?" Dean began, but when he turned around, the angel was gone. 

Confused, Dean looked in the mirror again, but only his own reflection stared at him.

After the young man had made sure that the angel wasn’t here (or at least didn’t want to show himself), Dean quickly dried off, got dressed and went to bed where sleep found him amazingly fast.

This hadn’t been the only occurrence.

A few weeks later - Dean was out shopping at the supermarket - the mechanic was taking a frozen pizza out of the freezer. When he closed the door again, he thought he saw Castiel's reflection in the window. The young man was so frightened to see the angel in a public place that he dropped the other things he wanted to buy.

But again, as he turned around, no one was there except for an elderly lady, who looked at him curiously before shaking her head and pushing her shopping cart further.

Now, nearly two months had passed since he had talked to Castiel. Dean was sitting with a beer at the table in the living room and was watching porn on his laptop. But even his busty Asian women couldn’t distract him.

His thoughts wandered again to the strange encounters with Castiel, and he wondered if there were other people who could see angels. He couldn’t be the only one, right?

Seized by curiosity and because he guessed that he had nothing to lose, he closed the page and opened Google. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, because he didn’t know exactly what to search for. ‘Supernatural encounters with angels?’ ‘Angels, truth or fiction’?

Dean decided to start with the most obvious and typed ‘guardian angel' into the search engine. As he expected, many religious sites appeared, which he only skimmed through, but after half an hour, he still hadn’t found what he was looking for.

Frustrated, the young man took a large sip of his beer and was about to close his laptop when an article caught his attention.

He clicked on the link and read the article. It described the case of a 23 -year-old woman who had been in a car accident. The rescue workers had had difficulty getting the woman out of the battered car where she was trapped, because their tools weren’t functioning. The doctors were worried that the young woman couldn’t survive any longer and might die. At her request to pray with the rescue workers, a priest appeared out of nowhere. He told the workers with a certain serenity to stay calm and that their tools would function properly at any moment and they could then free the victim. And indeed, while the strange priest was praying with the woman, the tools began to work again and they were able to save the woman. It was a miracle, the firefighters agreed to that.

But when they turned to the priest in order to thank him, he was gone. No one present could tell where he had gone or where he had come from. Had the stranger been an angel?

“Of all the sites, this one is the closest to the truth," a deep voice said close to his left ear. Dean, who was about to take another sip, choked, put the beer on the table and patted his chest as he coughed heavily.

Castiel had bent over Dean's shoulder to read along, but when the human stopped coughing and glared at him angrily, the angel quickly took a few steps back, remembering that Dean needed ‘personal space'.

Dean calmed down fast, for he was relieved that the angel hadn’t immediately disappeared again, and smiled slightly at Castiel. "We really should buy you a bell, Cas."

The nickname caused the angel to smile shyly.

Dean didn’t want to waste the time he had with the supernatural being. He sat down on the couch - Castiel next to him - and bombarded the angel with questions that he answered patiently.

"Does every person have a guardian angel?" Dean asked, after he had thought for a few minutes what he could ask the angel.

"Yes."

"What does the Sammy’s guardian angel look like?" the young man wanted to know.

"I don’t know."

That made Dean pause. He knew that they rarely saw each other, because Sam was studying and using his spare time for university work, but at least during their childhood the angels should have met. "What do you mean you don’t know? I thought you guardian angels never leave our side?"

"That's right, but we can’t see each other. I have only seen my brothers and sisters once, when I was created in heaven and was given the task to watch over you."

"Oh shit, so I 'm the only one who can see you and talk to you since you’ve been on Earth?"

Castiel looked away and stared at his hands in his lap, wringing them nervously before he nodded. No wonder that the angel was socially awkward - almost every time a shy smile played on his lips when Dean looked him in the eye, and he almost seemed enthusiastic when his charge asked him a question.

"I'm sorry," Dean said bitterly.

The angel raised his eyes and tilted his head to the side, a gesture that, as Dean had already learned in this short time, Cas did when he was confused or didn’t understand something. "What are you sorry for?"

"I spend my days with working, drinking and sleeping. That's it. In my life, nothing big happens. I’m neither interesting nor special enough to be worth sticking around all the time. You must be really bored."

The eyes of the angel were sad as he looked at Dean and his charge had to look away. He didn’t need pity, thank you very much. "But you are special, Dean," Cas insisted.

Dean laughed scornfully. "I'm not."

It made the young man uneasy when the angel kept staring at him, as if he was trying to solve a big mystery, until Cas's eyes got wide as he was suddenly overcome by a realization. "You really don’t believe me, do you?"

Dean didn’t answer. He didn’t like the course that this evening had taken, because he really wanted to know more about the angel, not to talk about his own problems.

"How come I see you, Cas?" he said into the silence. He knew he was taking a risk that the angel would disappear again, as it was the same question he had asked the last time, right before the angel had vanished and not showed up again for months.

But against all expectations, Castiel was still sitting next to him when Dean turned his head to the side to look at the angel.

There were a few minutes of silence, and Dean accepted that he would never get an answer to that question. He was just deciding never to ask him that again as it appeared to make the angel uncomfortable, when Castiel slowly raised his eyes and answered his question truthfully. "I can’t tell you why you can see me, Dean. I don’t understand it myself."

Castiel sighed as he laid his head back on the couch and aimed his gaze sadly at the ceiling. "I only know that you're lonely. Just like me."

Dean almost didn’t understand the last sentence, because the angel had whispered it so quietly – most likely so that Dean wouldn’t hear him. But when he realized the significance of this response, Dean couldn’t help but feel lousy.

Here was Dean lamenting how lonely he felt. Yes, he had had a crappy childhood, especially after the stuff with Alastair ... but at least he had a brother, for whom he would do anything. 

Although he didn’t have many friends, he loved the ones he had with all his heart and trusted them.

And Cas ... Cas had no one to talk to, he had seen his family only once, and was condemned to wander on Earth next to Dean, never to be seen by others or to get recognition for protecting his charge.

If Dean already felt lonely, then how must the angel feel? the young man wondered.

What was the saying? I cried because I had no shoes, until I met someone who had no feet.

Dean decided to treat the angel better, hoping that Cas wouldn’t disappear for months again after this conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> Ask me anything on my Tumblr! :D  
> http://superhobbitwholocked.tumblr.com/


End file.
